Review: Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut

Adam Jensen may not have asked for this, but I certainly did.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was one of my favourite games of 2011. It had a great concept with excellent stealth gameplay and a compelling narrative that drew me in and made me want to play it through again as soon as I had finished.

I recently picked up the Director's Cut of DEx:HR to see what sort of changes and improvements were made to the original game, and I can now say with certainty that anyone who enjoyed the original will love the newly updated edition.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with the game, you play as Adam Jensen, security chief for a large biotechnology firm that creates mechanical augmentations to improve the human body's capabilities. After Jensen is nearly killed in an attack on the company's labs, his body is fitted with expensive augmentations to keep him alive. Now one of the most powerful "augs" in existence, Jensen is sent out to find the truth behind the attack and the conspiracy behind it all.

The Director's Cut features several changes and improvements from the original. Smaller changes include improved textures and lighting, developer commentary, and a "making of" video. Fans of the original will be delighted to learn that The Missing Link story DLC is now fully integrated with the main game. Another addition requested by fans was a "New Game +" mode where after completing the game you have the option of starting again with all of your previous augmentations unlocked.

The biggest (and most welcomed) change in the Director's Cut is the overhauled and updated boss encounters.

There are four "boss fights" in DEx:HR, and most who played the original agreed that they were the lowest points of the game. Gun-fights with massively armoured mercenaries broke up the stealthy flow of the game's open areas, and unlike the original Deus Ex (2000) there were no options to use your stealth or hacking skills to defeat the bosses.

Thankfully, the Director's Cut fixes this problem entirely by updating the boss encounters to allow Jensen to defeat them through trickery, stealth, and hacking.

Each boss area now has a variety of hidden locations you can access through the use of augmentations, and they allow Jensen to utilize robots, turrets, poison gas, and other hazards to turn the battles in his favor.

A good example is during the second boss encounter with a character who uses invisibility augmentations to remain undetected, only reappearing briefly to attack Jensen before fleeing again. Hacking through several doors will lead Jensen to a hidden area above the boss room with a valve that will fill the room below with poison gas, shorting out the boss' cloaking software and allowing hackable turrets to detect them and finish the battle.

The updated boss fights were a very welcomed change to myself and many others who prefer to play the game as stealthily as possible, but even players who like their gun barrels hot can find enjoyment in the Director's Cut.

If you're a fan of the series, or if you're looking for a great stealth game, check it out - you won't be disappointed.

Earthbound coming to the Wii U Virtual Console

We all live in... (Photo Credit: VideoGameGeek)

Announced today is an exciting bit of news for retro gamers: the fan favourite Earthbound will be available in North America for the Wii U's Virtual Console.

Earthbound was initially released as "Mother 2" in Japan in August of 1994 and almost a year later in North America in June of 1995. Like that first release, Japanese gamers already have access to the game on the Wii U's Virtual Console. There is not yet a release date for Earthbound's North American debut on the Wii U Virtual Console, but its pending release has now been confirmed.

The original game, released for the SNES, was praised for its unique take on the RPG genre. The protagonists lived in a modern setting, as opposed to a fantasy world. They wielded baseball bats, ray guns, and frying pans as weapons and used psychic powers instead of magic. Hamburgers and sandwiches could be used to recover health.

Escargo Express: most reliable shipping in the country. (Photo Credit: lparchive.org)

In addition to this unique look at an RPG setting was a witty and irreverent sense of humour that permeated the whole game. You helped a band get out of debt, trapped zombies on "zombie paper", and recovered a trout-flavoured yogurt machine from a desert cave full of monkeys.

While a post looking back on this game is definitely warranted in the future, you should keep your eyes open for the game's eventual release on the Virtual Console.